


Such Beginning

by Trobadora



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: F/M, post-trilogy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 19:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Damien finds Gerald suspicious, Gerald finds Narilka intriguing, and beginnings and endings meet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatsubtext](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatsubtext/gifts).



> Many thanks to Wojelah for the brainstorming assistance, and to Isis and Shetiger for beta-reading.

  
_Such beginning, such end._  
(Earth proverb)  
  


* * *

  
  
**Jaggonath, Year 1256 A.S.  
_five years after the Forest burned_**

Damien took the broad steps of the front staircase two at a time. No one took notice of him as he pushed open the ornate doors to the cathedral; he was a regular visitor, after all. It was hours until the next service, and he saw only a few solitary worshippers in the velveted pews when he passed through the inner doors. He'd made it a habit to come here at times like this, to say his prayers in silence. To breathe the air of devotion and faith. Here, where thousands had prayed for centuries, every tile of the floor, every beam of alteroak, every ornate gold-plating breathed the purpose of the Church. It replenished him, every time.

As always, he could not resist the jewelled mural of the Prophet binding the Evil One. It was still there, despite what had become of the Prophet. He stood for some time contemplating it, and the man who had once been the Prophet. Gerald Tarrant, his companion during the most desperate years of his life. Damien had long lost the ability to keep them separate in his mind: it was the Prophet of the Law upon whose mortal work the Church was founded, but it was the Hunter Damian had known. The Hunter, whose immortal evil had permeated the entire region for centuries - yet who also, no matter how complete his corruption, had still valued nothing more than this creation of his. Even then he had remained, deep in his tarnished soul, a man of the Church, and more than once Damien had fancied he'd seen a glimpse of the Prophet's soul amid the darkness.

He shouldn't be thinking about this. The Hunter was dead. Gerald Tarrant as he'd been no longer existed; he was beyond Damien's reach by a compact every bit as unrelenting as that he had once forged with the Unnamed. He could carve out a new life for himself as a new man, could earn redemption yet. _Hope_ , Damien reminded himself. _Always and always, hope._

Damien turned away from the mural, breathed deeply one more time, then straightened his shoulders. He left the cathedral and climbed down the stairs to Jaggonath's central plaza. Despite the turn his thoughts had, once again, taken, he felt strengthened. 

He turned into the side alley that led past the Patriarch's Residence and on toward the hospital. It was nearly time for his shift. When he'd returned from the Forest, five years ago, he'd been something at loose ends. Unsure what to do now that he was no longer a priest, he'd volunteered at the local hospital, which had been overwhelmed now that Working the fae was no longer possible and all healing must be natural. Somehow, he had never quite had incentive enough to leave.

As he was approaching the Residence, its front doors opened and a couple stepped out, expensive cloaks wrapped around them, arm in arm in the old-fashioned style. A young acolyte accompanied them down the stairs, carrying a bag in her hands.

They were striking: both black-haired, fine-boned, of the type often called "delicate", slender and elegant. The woman was some years older than the man, her skin several shades paler than the olive of his. 

All of that Damien took in within a single instant; it was the realisation of the next moment that stopped him as if he'd run into a solid wall.

He'd seen each of them once before. The woman had been Andrys Tarrant's companion, and later wife - he'd seen her that day in the Forest, when he'd thought Andrys had killed Gerald. But it was the sight of the man that stopped him dead in his tracks. The man Damien had seen two years ago on a hillside facing the burning Forest. The man who had explained to him that he was unable to reclaim his old identity on pain of death. The man who wasn't Gerald any more. 

What was he doing with his late descendant's wife? What business had he had with the Patriarch?

The couple took no notice of Damien as the man took the bag the acolyte handed him. They turned and walked slowly down the alley in quiet conversation. The acolyte looked after them for a moment, then went off in the opposite direction, towards Damien.

Damien forced himself to move again, and when he was about to pass the acolyte, asked her: "God's blessing, child. Was that the lady Narilka?" 

The acolyte brushed a lock of brown hair behind her ear, and nodded. "The Dowager Neocountess, yes, and her husband, Gerald Tarrant." She gave him a curious look, as if to ask why he cared. Weather-hardened and rough, he certainly didn't look like the kind of person who paid attention to such things.

The tension in his gut had grown to roiling. This wasn't possible; it couldn't be. But he'd never been one to let his reactions be slowed by shock. He'd never had the luxury.

Damien held out a coin to the child. "Would you run an errand for me, child?"

She eyed the coin with interest. "If it's allowed."

"Would you run down to Mercy Hospital for me and tell them Damien Vryce won't be able to come in today?"

She grinned. "That's easy enough, mer. Damien Vryce. Will do." She snatched the coin, and bounded off down the street, unaware of the blow she'd delivered. 

Damien looked after her for a moment. Then he turned on his heel and made his way back to the plaza and on to the library, to catch up on all the news of Merentha that he'd failed to pay attention to in the past years.

~*~

There was joy mixed up in his reaction. Damien had to acknowledge that. He'd never been a man given to self-delusion; it was what had allowed him to survive, soul intact, through years travelling with the Hunter. And merely seeing him again, merely knowing that he was alive and well - that alone was enough to make something in Damien feel light, almost exhilarated, as if an impossible burden he hadn't known he was carrying had suddenly been lifted.

But the joy was quickly drowned out by dread. Damien put away the last of the folders and papers and sat back in his chair in the library's reading room, lowering his face into his hands. A picture was emerging, and it wasn't pleasant.

He'd heard, of course, of Narilka's marriage to Andrys Tarrant, Gerald's descendant. He'd also heard of Andrys's death less than two years later, though he'd paid little attention. 

What he hadn't heard of - had not cared to pay attention to - had been Narilka Tarrant's remarriage to a man called Gerald Silva. He'd taken her name - and he'd become father to the child she bore. Damien had, increasingly frantically, searched through newspaper clippings until he'd finally come across an image. He stared, eyes burning, at the blonde girl who resembled neither of her dark-haired parents, neither in colouring nor in facial structure. Allowing for a toddler's pudginess, she was the spitting image of ...

Of the man Gerald had been, for nine hundred years. Of the Hunter. And therefore of Andrys, whose uncanny resemblance to his distant ancestor had set the crusade against the Forest in motion, six years ago.

That day in the Forest, it had looked as if Andrys had killed the Hunter. Damien remembered vividly the severed head, and shuddered. But Gerald had survived; had Worked one last sacrifice - had given his body, his very identity, for another chance at life. Or so the young man who most emphatically _wasn't_ Gerald Tarrant had explained to Damien, afterwards, before he'd disappeared from his life for good.

Except that he'd broken the rules. Instant death should have followed any attempt to reclaim his past identity. Gerald had been quite clear on that fact, that day on the hillside. But here he was, his name returned to him through marriage; the castle of Merentha his home again; raising the last child of his own line. What dark Working could have undone the sacrifice that had saved him, and left him living? What terrible choice had Gerald, once again, made?

Please, no. Let this not be what Gerald had done. _Please, God,_ Damien prayed. _Let him not have fallen to darkness again._

This was, after all, the man who had, a thousand years ago, murdered his whole family for survival. For the chance to see what his mortal work would come to.

It couldn't be. Gerald had changed; Damien had been sure of that. Gerald had, up there on the volcano, given more than his life - had been willing to give himself over to eternal damnation, the one thing he'd feared worse than death itself, for the protection of mankind. True selflessness. And it had been genuine - couldn't have been anything less, or it would never have held the power to Bind the demon Calesta. Damien had been sure Gerald had earned his chance at redemption.

And after all, as the Prophet himself had written, _The nature of the One God is mercy._

And now, this. _What had Gerald done?_

~*~

**Merentha, Year 1252 A.S.  
_one year after the Forest burned_**

Gerald chewed the roast with his eyes closed. The noises of the inn around him were merely background clatter; he paid attention to none of them. The currents here were unexceptional, too, nothing worthy of his attention. This far from the geological turmoil of Shaitan, away from the major fault lines and volcanoes, the earth fae flowed much thinner and more calmly. Merentha was, these days, a quiet little town not worthy of much note; far from the bustling port city it had been before the Stekkis river had changed its flow, leaving the sparse waters of a handful of former tributaries forming a mere trickle in its former bed.

All that flowed on the currents here was what came from people, and Gerald had little interest in people. He had been in town for a week now and "Gerald Silva", as he called himself here, had avoided talking to almost anyone save the innkeeper and the head librarian. Instead, he focused on the act of eating; a procedure so strange to him it still overwhelmed him sometimes, even after a full year. Sometimes it was merely the texture, unfamiliar and unpleasant after centuries where even liquid nourishment had been a rare and desperate measure for one accustomed to feeding on his victims' terror. Sometimes he was overcome with too much awareness of what exactly was in his mouth, of muscle and skin and fibres, pieces of living things, and his throat closed and his stomach attempted to heave. He counted it as a minor victory that half the time he managed to eat without conscious awareness of the particulars of the act, and then snorted at himself. Ridiculous, to count such an everyday thing meaningful in any way. 

Which was why he was concentrating on eating now. Once, long ago, newly become a creature of dark fae and cold, remade in the image of the Unnamed, he had found himself with strange appetites. He had learned to feed them; then learned to enjoy the feeding. In Gerald's experience, anything could become an acquired taste. And he applied himself to the task of acquiring - re-acquiring - a taste for human food with determination. 

He had a life to live now - one life; a mere mortal lifespan, and he would have to make the most of it. Would have to find a new way of being. 

Redemption, Vryce would have said. Gerald was not at all certain that was even possible. He knew himself too well, could not delude himself about any of his deeds, or their motive. The worst part was that even now, he could not bring himself to feel true regret; not for any of it. How could he wish not to have seen all that he had seen, known all that he had known? How could he regret still being here, now, never mind the path that had brought him here? That - as he had once explained to Vryce - was part and parcel of his own damnation, and he rather suspected that even this second lease on life couldn't ultimately alter that. The Unnamed had no claim on him any longer, but that hardly wiped the slate clean. 

Perhaps it was all a futile task, and he would end up dying, not to mercy, but to damnation after all. Yet what choice did he have but try?

God's mercy? God's irony, more like it. Vryce might have appreciated that.

He became aware of a change in the background noise, and a matching shift in the currents: an awareness building in the room, curiosity and the cloying taste of gossip. In the same moment, he became aware of footsteps approaching. Gerald's lip curled as he opened his eyes, shaking off his futile ruminations. 

There was a woman approaching, pale and black-haired, wearing an expensive woollen cloak. Her face was tense, and there were shadows under her eyes. Fear radiated from her, though not for herself. Once, he would have enjoyed the taste of it; now it was merely knowledge to him, no different from any other.

He recognised her immediately, of course. Narilka Lessing, the woman he'd once, on the whim of the moment, promised safety. What had become of that he could never have predicted, which only showed how careful one had to be with even the smallest kindness. Failing to recognise her had once almost been his demise, threatening to break his given word, loosening his hold on his very soul, that which distinguished him from a mere fae-born thing. These concerns no longer mattered, though - he was human now. 

And she had married Andrys Tarrant, Gerald's own descendant. What she saw in him was anyone's guess.

Ah, never mind. He might know her; she would not recognise him in his new body. Why would she approach him? He could no longer Work a Knowing; he would have to speak to her to find out. 

"Mer Silva?" she greeted him as she approached his table. "I apologise for interrupting your meal."

"I was done with this." Gerald pushed his plate away and stood, bowing courteously. "At your service, Neocountess." His manners were too ingrained, even if his inclination was more to ask her to skip the pleasantries and get to the point.

"Thank you, Mer Silva." Narilka smiled slightly, though the expression didn't reach her eyes. "I wouldn't have approached you during dinner, but you're an elusive man."

He was so for a reason. An abrupt gesture prompted her into continuing.

"I won't waste your time. You're an adept, and I'm in need of one."

Gerald blinked at that. He had made no secret of that fact, but with the change in the fae, most people no longer saw any use of an adept's abilities. After all, there was no Working any more, no touching the fae. Only perception; no way of affecting what one saw. 

"You have managed to track me down," he acknowledged. "But are there no other adepts in this town?" He had not bothered to find out, though it would not surprise him much if it were true. Even Jaggonath counted less than twenty adepts among its population; and that was a city much larger and more important, a true centre of civilization. Merentha, in comparison, was a backwater town, its age and history its only claim to fame.

Narilka shook her head. "There were two, I'm told. One moved away. The other committed suicide last year." 

Gerald didn't have to guess why. There had been too many suicides among former sorcerors, after the change in the fae. "Very well," he said at last. "What is it you imagine an adept can do for you?"

Narilka hesitated. "May we speak in private?"

~*~

A body lay upon the bed. Completely still, unmoving, its flesh not quite cool to the touch, but with none of the warmth a living, moving body generated.

Alive, but barely so. Blood still circulating, organs functioning, electrical impulses flowing - the brain still engaged in sending signals, directing the autonomic nervous system.

That much, at least.

Gerald had not hesitated to come with Narilka once she'd explained. Andrys was, after all, the last of his descendants. And now he was lying here, lost to the world, deep in a coma at best, an empty shell at worst.

 _Neocount of Merentha_ , indeed. Gerald still couldn't quite suppress the sneer at the thought of the man claiming a title a thousand years defended. For centuries, Gerald had made certain no one could ever claim to have succeeded him - he was and remained the first, and only, Neocount of Merentha. But he'd left that behind - sacrificed it, for survival. For this new life. 

He'd let Andrys have the title - was this what he'd done with it? Narilka had explained that Andrys had been in this state for two days already, and had shared her suspicions of what had caused it. He would know for certain soon.

Gerald took a slow, measured glance around the room, taking in everything, and Narilka's gaze followed his. He observed the flow of the fae, here in this room: the way the currents responded to Narilka's every movement, and to his own, to every thought and feeling. Man's emotions might no longer birth demonlings and wraiths, but the currents were still directed and redirected by them. As they were by any living thing.

Any living thing, save the one on the bed.

A still spot: the currents unaffected by the life-not-life state it was in. 

"The Healers can't Work the fae any more," Narilka whispered. "They can no longer See within the brain, and so they cannot tell whether anything of Andrys is still alive." Her fingers clenched tightly, as if she were trying to stop herself from wringing her hands. "But you - you can still See. Can you tell for certain?"

Gerald nodded and stepped forward, drawing his knife. It might be that the man on the bed had merely withdrawn so deeply into himself, the fae could not touch him. It might be that there was no life left at all - no mind, awake or asleep. Narilka's concerns were well warranted, though it'd take closer examination to be certain.

He could hear Narilka's tiny gasp when he cut into Andrys's flesh, but she did not cry out, nor voice any protest. Sensible.

With detached curiosity, he watched a small rivulet of blood flow from the shallow incision in Andrys's temple, watched life flow and spill its shadows, its memories on the fae.

This would have been so much easier if he could have Worked. It would have been a moment's work to be certain. As it was, he grudgingly concentrated on what the fae would divulge on its own. He shifted into the currents, strained his eyes for the smaller fluctuations, interpreted the patterns and flavours and images. Narilka remained quiet, though it must seem as if he were doing nothing but stare.

He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. Sweat! Something he certainly could have done without. It was untidy, and it smelled, and the Hunter had never had to put up with anything like it.

Never mind. 

Finally he had seen all there was to see, and he closed his eyes for a moment, resting his eyes. Then he pushed himself to his feet. Irritatingly, he felt himself tremble slightly. Mere perception should not be this much of a strain. 

"Are you all right?" Narilka asked, taking a concerned step forward, reaching out a hand as if to steady him. He neatly sidestepped her.

"It is of no consequence," he assured her. Then hesitated for a moment, but there was no point delaying. "He's truly gone, I'm afraid. There is nothing left." He shook his head and looked down in a display of respect for the dead. What he felt was closer to anger than grief, though. How dare the man drug himself into such a state? He'd tasted the _blackout_ derivative quite clearly on the currents. Worked drugs, of the kind it was no longer possible to produce. It must have cost a considerable price. Andrys clearly had taken them not in small quantity, and not once or twice only. Such things could detach a mind from a body, and let it be swept away by the fae if one was not careful. But somehow that possibility hadn't been deterrent enough. It never was.

Narilka seemed to crumple. "I knew it," she whispered. "I knew, but I hoped ..." She shook her head decisively. "Thank you, Mer Silva. I am ... grateful for your assistance."

"Of course," Gerald replied blandly, his lip curling a little as he looked back at the lifeless body of his descendant.

No. Not lifeless. Certainly alive, in the physical sense: Breath and heartbeat, a functional metabolism. But no more than that: a body only. 

Gerald's eyes shifted to Narilka, who was looking at Andrys's still form with reddened eyes, spine erect and features still. Despair flowed from her; the currents were sour with it. Despair ... and something else. There was a barely perceptible twist to the currents around her that he didn't quite know how to interpret, like the tiniest of rapids. Too small an irregularity to be seen at a distance - he'd never have noticed had he not examined her so closely. It irritated him that he could not put a name to it, though it seemed familiar. The taste of it on the currents ... no; it wouldn't come. He couldn't remember. 

"I thought he'd stopped," she said, voice almost clinically detached. "He used to ... but I thought he'd stopped."

Andrys had always been weak, Gerald thought uncharitably. The Hunter had done no worse to him than he'd done to others, in the long line of Tarrants carefully shaped and controlled by him, and most of them had held up much better. 

"It's not any of my business, I'm aware," Gerald said, though of course it very much was. As expected, it prompted her to continue. 

"It was a heart attack," Narilka said softly. "Three months ago. We don't know the exact cause, but we did know the danger. A year ago he might have been saved by a skilled Healer, but now ..."

Gerald nodded. In this at least, he could relate, uncomfortable though it was. The heart attack - and wasn't that a worrying parallel to Gerald's own first mortal life? - had left Andrys terrified with good reason. There was nothing to be done about a failing heart; it was no surprise the knowledge had preyed on Andrys.

"He never knew how to battle his fears without intoxication," Narilka said bitterly, and then bit her lip at the unkindness.

Gerald studied the currents closer, and examined the visions the fae threw up. There was nothing of a mind left in there, of course, but objects carried their history with them, and so did Andrys's body. "There must have been warning signs," Gerald decided. "Did you notice?"

She flushed dark with a mixture of shame, guilt and anger. "Yes. A month ago or so, we couldn't wake him in the morning. He said he didn't know what caused it."

Likely the event had only increased his fear. Vicious cycle. Very neatly ironic. Gerald could appreciate that.

"You guessed."

Narilka nodded. "He wouldn't talk to me."

Again Gerald wondered at the flavour on the fae flowing from her. There was something almost-familiar in it, as of a memory long forgotten. When had he last tasted this?

When the penny dropped, he turned and looked at her with renewed interest. "You are pregnant," he stated. It came out sounding like an accusation.

"What?" She blanched. "I ... no. Not that I know of."

He examined her again, silently, and held out a hand to touch her belly. She almost flinched back, but instead chose to stare at him in defiance. He smiled. There could be no doubt, now. There was a second life within her. Small as of yet, almost imperceptible without the help of a Knowing, but it was there. He remembered now. Almea's pregnancies, all of them. His own children, centuries long ago. No wonder the memory was distant.

Gerald forced himself to relax slightly. "You are pregnant," he repeated, almost gently. "You may not have known, but your husband left you something."

He could not help the fascination springing up within him. Not the end of his line, then, after all.

~*~

**Jaggonath, Year 1256 A.S.  
_five years after the Forest burned_**

Damien firmly told himself to get a grip. He had better move on before one of the neighbours called the police over the rough-looking fellow skulking in the shadows.

Leaning back against the door of the small souvenir shop, long closed for the night, Damien looked across the street at the alterwood door of the townhouse Gerald and Narilka had rented. Never mind his joy; never mind his dread. Was it safe to walk over and knock on that door, to speak to Gerald again? Could he resist even if it wasn't?

He'd seen Narilka leave earlier; she hadn't yet returned. He might even get the chance to speak to Gerald alone.

He might not like what answers he received, but he needed to _know_ \- something Gerald would understand better than anyone. It was why he was standing here in the night like some thug casing a mark. It was ridiculous, and unworthy of a Knight of the Flame, of a former priest. 

Suddenly the broad door opened, and Gerald's slender form appeared. He focused narrowed eyes directly on the spot where Damien stood, and took a few steps into the deserted street until he could be heard without shouting. 

"Don't just stand there, Vryce," he said. "Quit poisoning the currents with your brooding, and come inside."

~*~

Gerald was in shirt-sleeves. That alone was almost as bizarre as the whole situation.

Not that he looked untidy or - God forbid - casual; he was still all clean lines and smooth elegance. Nevertheless, for Gerald, this low a degree of formality was unprecedented. Damien had seen Gerald in true disarray, of course, but never by choice. Even Gerald's black hair, a little over shoulder-length, was held back not by a silver clasp, but by a simple leather band.

Gerald had walked into the room before Damien, and stood for a moment with his back to his guest; then he turned abruptly. "You have questions, I'm sure."

"Plenty," Damien snapped. "Is it safe to ask any of them?"

Gerald's eyes were dark, so unlike the pale Damien remembered, and yet the expression in them was as closed and unreadable as ever he'd seen Gerald look. "You know my name," he said curtly. "And I'm certain you've found out the rest as well; you never were slow on that front." He affected an ironic bow. "Gerald Tarrant, at your service."

Damien closed his eyes for a moment. If it was possible, the name sounded even more damning spoken in Gerald's dry, almost amused voice. "Gerald Tarrant," he repeated, and took a deep breath. "Where do I even start? You know exactly what my questions are; which of them were you planning to answer?"

Gerald tilted his head to the side, seeming detached, almost amused. "Most people, when forced to make compromise with evil, delude themselves about its nature. You never did. So I will assume you prefer the truth here as well."

"Gerald!"

"You know where I have placed myself. You know the closeness of my new life to my old. And you want to know why this hasn't destroyed me yet."

Damien glared. "Among other things. But let's start there."

Miraculously, Gerald nodded. Why he would give reply to Damien's unspoken accusations, Damien didn't know. There was definitely a smile on the man's lips now, as of a satisfied uncat. "That one is simple," he said calmly. "I did make a sacrifice. I can't reclaim my past; that much is true - it's lost to me. It must remain thoroughly in the past. Make no mistake here; I _was_ the Hunter, the Prophet, the Neocount. I am no longer; I never will be again. All of that I sacrificed. I knew that then: whatever I might do next, I must be a new man." He shrugged eloquently. "I couldn't be alive to you and do that. That is all there is to it."

Damien digested this. All too often in the past years he'd thought about seeing Gerald again, finding out what had happened to him, what he'd made of himself. Never in all his imagined scenarios had it gone like this. Never had Gerald been so ... so ...

Gerald's lip quirked; a familiar sardonic and more-than-slightly condescending expression - and it was that familiarity, even on an unfamiliar face, that threw Damien's brain into gear again. 

"So you lied." Damien took a deep breath, stifling the urge to grab Gerald by the shoulders and shake him. "You lied to me, making me believe you were forever cut off from your past. _You lied_ , Gerald."

"Indeed," Gerald agreed pleasantly, leaning back and steepling his fingers. "Is that truly so surprising to you?"

Damien closed his eyes in despair. The worst of it was, of course, that it wasn't. Gerald had lied to him before, had let him believe all the wrong things for all the right reasons. Had played him and his reactions like a fiddle. And Damien had put up with being manipulated because they'd needed each other; because he'd had good reasons; because the threat they faced was too great to not use every advantage possible, even the deliberate misleading of an ally - a friend - in the hopes of also misleading their enemies. Because they'd had no choice. 

This time, though?

"Why did you come at all, then?" Damien asked eventually. "That day, in Black Ridge."

Gerald looked at him almost gently. "Don't you know?"

Damien swallowed. Yes, of course he did. If anyone understood the need to see what had come of your work, it was Gerald; it was that need that had propelled him down his dark path, centuries ago. Of course he'd known how much it would matter seeing Gerald alive, knowing Damien's prayers for the man's redemption had not been futile. Of course he had. 

"All right," he said hoarsely. "So you were able to do all that you did, and it cost you nothing. Why this? Gerald, you had the chance to build something new. To let go of the corruption of centuries, and find your way back to ..." Damien trailed off. To his better self? To God? What was the right word to use?

Gerald ignored the incomplete sentence. His expression was shrewd. "Are you certain you want to know?"

~*~

**Merentha, Year 1252 A.S.  
_one year after the Forest burned_**

Gerald stepped out into the night. The core had long set, and out here above the galactic plane, at the very edge of the galaxy, the sky was very nearly empty. Of the three moons, only Casca was visible, a narrow crescent casting next to no illumination on the land. Any actual light for humans to see by came from street lamps, not the sky. It was barely a sliver of light away from True Night. Almost immediately, a cloak of darkness began to wrap itself around him - dark fae clinging to him as to every surface, purple tendrils twining around his legs, his body, slowly seeping into him. He wondered what it would do, now that its malignant power was no longer directly affected by the human mind.

The speculation occupied him while he made his way through Merentha's narrow alleyways, and upwards to the castle. Andrys Tarrant had been buried that day. Gerald had had no claim to a place among the mourners, nor any inclination to place himself among the horde of curious onlookers, yet the man had been his descendant. Surely some acknowledgment was in order. And so a visit to the castle's graveyard late at night it was.

Gerald encountered few people along the way. None of them were afraid of the darkness, though. Gerald wasn't entirely certain whether or not they should be. The powers that came out under such circumstances were intimately familiar to him, of course. The dark fae, once the most dangerous power on the planet, was no longer affected by humanity as it had been, but was still there. What was it, in and of itself? What was it, with only Ernan nature to consider, humans unable to directly affect it?

Soon there were no other people around, and the illumination became sparser. No street lamps guarded the cobbled road up the small hill above the former port. But Gerald needed no artificial lights: the fae itself glowed brightly enough. To his eyes, the castle above shone, showing all the glory of the gothic design he himself had created. True, lightless darkness was alien to an adept; the closest Gerald himself had come to it had been on the sea, far from the shore, out beyond the continental shelf. When day faded into night there and the solar fae was no longer in evidence, any earth fae was too distant below the water to perceive, and on the small ship, even dark fae had not much room.

Once, manifestational response here would have been almost instantaneous for any stronger emotion - any fear would have come true immediately. Now, fear was merely that: an emotion, contained within a human mind. 

Of course the fae didn't remain entirely untouched by humans, even now. Knowledge still floated on the currents. Naturally; no such force could course through the world and be unaffected by what it passed. Conversely, surely it must affect them as well. And yet, just in what new way Gerald hadn't been able to determine. Even as an adept, who could See it all, he still could not answer that very basic question: How did the fae touch them now? What was the relation between humanity and Erna's natural forces now?

His thoughts were beginning to turn in circles. Gerald shrugged off the futile speculation and made his way around the old castle wall, circling around until he came to the wrought-iron gates leading into the cemetery. He could no longer Work the lock, but there were other methods. And as it turned out, he did not even need those; the gate swung open silently at his touch. The day's mourners had not locked it behind them.

Gerald walked through the old gravesite with a curious feeling of melancholy; he'd known many of the people buried here. In many cases, he'd been the cause of their death. Now, the last of his descendants had died ... save for the child Narilka carried. If she carried it to term ...

He turned around the northern corner of the mausoleum, and came to a halt. There was a light ahead that was not of the fae. He was not alone.

Before him, Narilka Tarrant was turning away from her husband's gravestone, peering into the darkness from her small circle of lamplight. "Who's there?" she called, her hand clenching around a dagger.

Gerald hesitated. Then, not entirely certain why, he stepped forward. "I apologise, Mes Tarrant. I didn't mean to startle you. The gate was not locked."

She narrowed her eyes. "Mer Silva? What are you doing here?" 

He came closer. "I thought to pay my respects. Forgive me; I often walk at night."

Narilka let go of her dagger, looking down at the ground. "Ah. I forgot - the world looks different to an adept. Of course it's not dark to you."

Most people couldn't seem to remember that simple fact. But Narilka had apparently not forgotten what he'd shown her once.

"I didn't expect to find anyone else here at this time," Gerald said, his voice deliberately inflectionless so she might take it as another apology if she chose, or an inquiry if she was inclined. He found himself curious why she was here alone in the dark.

"Too many people," Narilka admitted. "He was ... who he was, and people take an interest; I understand that. But it became ... more about them than him. I wanted to say good-bye in peace."

Gerald nodded slowly. "I will leave you to it." 

He made to turn away, but she shook her head and held out a hand. "You came all the way here." The corner of her lip rose into a wry smile. "And my thoughts were entirely too morbid. Feel free to stay."

He would have left if the currents had given him indication, but instead he took the remaining steps into the light of the small lamp sitting on the grass at her feet, and looked at the fresh grave. The stone marker was set loosely at its top; it would have to be placed properly once the grave had set. There were small rocks placed on it in the age-old custom. Rocks, and a silver buckle. 

Ah, yes. Narilka was a a silversmith, wasn't she? Or had been, at least.

He gestured toward it. "Bury it," he advised. "The good citizens of Merentha may have respect for the Neocounty, but the lure of silver is strong."

She nodded. "You're right. I'm not thinking straight."

"Your husband is dead," he allowed. 

She made no response; merely took the buckle from the stone and regarded it thoughtfully. "I haven't done any silverwork in ... has it really been a year already?" she said eventually, clearly talking to herself. "This was supposed to be a gift ... Why did I never give it to him?"

Narilka went to her knees beside the grave. With her bare hands, she buried it in the fresh earth as he watched. There were no tears on her face, but he knew better than to believe that an indicator of her state of grief. Everyone grieved differently, and if she was not the type to shed visible tears, that was something he understood quite well.

They remained quietly for several minutes; she kneeling on the ground, and he standing, both of them contemplating the dead man. Neither of them spoke.

Standing still like that, it was quite cold. Gerald shivered a little, and thought wistfully of the time when ice and cold were nothing but comfort to him.

On the other hand, he didn't miss the burn of sun or fire at all. Now, when he stood under the sun, the sensation was almost pleasant. And he suspected the _almost_ was merely due to its unfamiliarity. He would become accustomed. He had taken to undeath, after a period of trial and error, with verve; surely life could be no harder.

Eventually Narilka made to rise again, and he held out his hand, helping her up. He wasn't certain why he wasn't bothered by her presence, nor she by his. There was her child, of course, but surely that could not be all on his part. He'd appreciated her quiet strength before, hadn't he?

She turned to him, her expression unreadable. "It's cold. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? You have a long walk down the hill."

~*~

Gerald followed Narilka quietly as she led the way into the castle. She was not acting rationally, inviting a near-stranger inside late at night, but he was not going to protest. She'd never been one to be easily scared, anyway. She'd once managed to face the Hunter himself with concern rather than terror, and that after he'd hunted her to near-death ... And he could not call her delusional for it; she'd known exactly what she was doing.

The maid quickly brought them tea, steaming hot and fragrant, and Narilka poured him a cup. He gratefully wrapped his fingers around it and let its warmth seep into him. Then his eyes fell onto a silver object on the side table - unfinished; clearly Narilka's own work - and Narilka flinched. Flinched, as she had not even at the approach of a stranger in the darkness.

Curious, Gerald put his cup down and reached for the item. Narilka's hand shot out as if to rip it from his grasp. "I beg your pardon," she said, sharply.

Gerald merely raised his eyebrows at her. Of course he was being decidedly uncourteous, but he was hardly here to be _kind_ to her. Best not to give her any delusions on that count.

Narilka pressed her lips together and glared at him. 

"My apologies," he said, and made to put the piece down again. But when he looked at it briefly, he gasped, and froze in place.

"Astonishing," he breathed.

Narilka's hand fell away.

At first glance it had looked like an unfinished silver Earth medallion, of the type commonly worn by the faithful - the one symbol the Church allowed. (Perhaps that iconoclastic attitude might be allowed to change now, Gerald thought idly, since idols no longer posed the threat of manifesting godlings.) But he'd accidentally turned it over when he'd lifted it, and it was not Earth that the other side of the medallion displayed. If the shape of the continents had not given it away, it would have been the delicate tendrils curling around it like a gentle caress, a shelter. The fae. Narilka had attempted to depict Erna in the embrace of the fae. Dark fae, to be precise - not the flow and rush of the earth fae; not the pounding of the solar fae or the random, split-second glimpses one might catch of the tidal fae at times. Some of the tendrils had inlays - purple sugilite, almost glowing in the shadow. Not meant to be precious; meant to be beautiful. _Perfect._

Only about half of the amulet was finished; the frame in particular still lacked much definition. But the silver was polished, not blackened - clearly the smith had stopped working on this quite some time ago, and left it in its unfinished state.

He turned it over again in his hand. Erna, and Earth, and Erna again. The two-sided medaillon reminded him of the one he'd used to wear himself, the Earth-symbol on one side and the Forest's mark on the other. But this was different; these two sides were in balance. Two visions, two realities - neither better nor worse than the other. Amazing.

Gerald tore his eyes away from the beauty, and looked up at Narilka, who seemed to have frozen in place as well. "Why did you stop working on this?" he asked.

Narilka started again. "It didn't seem appropriate," she said eventually. "And the vision faded. In the end, I was no longer sure what I was trying made any sense." The corner of her lip turned downward. "It's been on my mind recently."

"You capture it perfectly," Gerald said, brushing a reverent finger over one of the tendrils of dark fae. "Few would have dared, but you deliberately set out to show the beauty in darkness." A thin smile. "Am I correct?"

Of course he was. He'd been the one to show her the beauty of night, years ago. That she'd remembered - that she still cherished his gift, offhand and casual as it had been on his side ... it touched something within him.

She ducked her head, and it was then that he realised she was expecting censure. The amulet might have been considered sacrilege by a man of the Church, but she didn't know him as such. No; she was specifically expecting condemnation from one who knew the fae. What sorceror would have admitted any fondness for the darker side of the fae, that which was called vile and evil, menace and corruption? Any who could See might have grasped its beauty, but its danger weighed too heavy, and few looked at it without seeing horror. 

"It's a daring attempt," Gerald said quietly. "I am honoured to have seen it. You should finish it."

Her head came up, surprise on her features. "You don't disapprove?"

He gave her a rare smile. "I know how to See without judgment. It's a common misconception that beauty and goodness in any way align; they are entirely separate axes. And there are few things more beautiful than this."

Narilka's eyes were fixed on him now. "I was never a sorceress," she said. "But someone once gave me a gift, and I treasured it until it faded. It changed my life." Wistfully, "I wish I could see it again."

"I would gladly show you, if I still could."

"But you still See." Deep fascination and something almost like greed radiated from her - less possessive, perhaps, but equally as intense. "Has it changed? I always wondered. Does it still look the same?

He nodded, then held out his hand to her. Hesitantly she grasped it. He led her to the window and stood beside her, looking out into the darkened courtyard. 

"Shall I describe for you what I see?" he murmured quietly. "Shall I tell you of the things we may no longer touch? Your design is entirely correct, you know - this planet is cradled by the fae. Every part of it is permeated by powers invisible to most. That was before man ever set foot on this world, and will be long after the last of us have vanished. Shall I attempt to put into words what your eyes cannot see?"

"Please," she breathed. 

He was not certain exactly why, but he did.

~*~

**Jaggonath, Year 1256 A.S.  
_five years after the Forest burned_**

"Papa?" A sleepy toddler's voice came from the door.

Damien turned and swallowed at the sight. Janna Tarrant was a little older than the picture Damien had seen, and if possible her resemblance to her father was even more striking. 

Gerald rose from his seat and went to her. "Janna," he said quietly, in a gentle voice Damien had heard from him but once or twice, and never without ulterior motive. "Did we wake you?"

Janna shook her head. "Just woke up." She held out her hands to him, her expression pure misery. "There were uncherries. Now I'm dirty." Her small hands were indeed stained with juice, and so was her mouth, but of course she couldn't see that. And she was looking at the stains with an expression of such distaste, Damien's heart clenched. It was exactly the same look Gerald had always given whenever he had found himself less than tidy. 

Gerald smiled almost indulgently, and lifted her into his arms. "Let's do something about that." He carried her out, and it wasn't long before they returned, Janna's hands and mouth cleaned. "Shall I put you to bed again?" he murmured to her.

The girl's eyes were already falling shut. "Story first," she demanded nonetheless.

Gerald kissed her forehead. "Of course. We wouldn't want to dispense with ritual, would we?"

With no more than a brief raised eyebrow at Damien he carried his daughter from the room.

Gerald had been a father before, of course, and Damien had even seen glimpses of that with Jenseny. But what motive was there in this? _Was_ there ulterior motive? He couldn't know.

Damien had once known this man well; better than he had ever known anyone. Better, he suspected, than anyone had ever known Gerald. But what he'd found here was so unexpected, he felt as if he were facing a stranger. Familiar as every aspect of it might have been, in combination it added up to something he didn't understand at all.

When Gerald returned to the room, some minutes later, Damien rose.

"It's later than I thought," he said quietly. "I'll leave."

"You still have questions, though."

"Tomorrow?" 

Gerald nodded his assent as he walked Damien to the door.

Damien hesitated. "Just two things before I go."

"Yes?"

"Your name. How can that not be too close to who you were?" 

Gerald's lip curled. "Truly, Vryce, you should know better. Don't you remember the first time we met? I introduced myself - with my name, even my place of origin. You thought nothing of it."

Damien thought back to that day, eight years ago now. Gerald had introduced himself to Ciani, in fact, and she had passed it on to Damien and Senzei: _Gerald Tarrant, originally of Amaranth, most recently from Sheva._ The Prophet's name. The higher ranks of the Church had never forgotten that name, and he'd known it well enough - had known all that the Church had carefully suppressed about its own Prophet, lest the message be tainted by the messenger. Yet he hadn't reacted at all to Gerald's name. He snorted. "Of course."

"Just so," Gerald said, wryly. "Tarrant is one of the most common names in these parts - not of my line, of course, but distant relatives from my uncles' sides of the family, at best. And Gerald is a common first name. I'm certain I wasn't the first person you'd come across who carried that name."

He hadn't been. "All right. So, just one more thing." He looked Gerald firmly in the eyes as he spoke. "Does your wife know?" 

Gerald didn't look surprised by the question at all. "That," he said, a private smile quirking his lips, "you will have to ask her yourself."

~*~

**Merentha, Year 1252 A.S.  
_one-and-a-half years after the Forest burned_**

Narilka was almost floating on endorphins and accomplishment when she rushed into Gerald's rooms, flushed with excitement, and a little out of breath due to her pregnancy. She barely paid any attention to the woman who was just leaving; he often had visitors these days. Once word had got around that his adept's abilities could still be useful, people had lined up to consult. It had been Narilka's work, she liked to think, that had convinced him to actually accept their requests. He sometimes complained about being harassed, and often had scathing commentary on his clients, but he did assist them. For a fee, naturally.

"I wanted to show you," Narilka said as soon as they were alone, and drew the finished Earth-and-Erna medallion from an inner pocket. Almost shyly she held it out again, and flushed even more when he lifted it from her hand reverently. 

Gerald looked at it for a long time, his face controlled as ever, but his eyes seemed to shine with some indescribable emotion. 

"What will you do with it?" he asked eventually, holding it out to her on the palm of his hand.

She hadn't actually thought that far; had only considered the piece itself. Had never even imagined being able to share its meaning to her, had never conceived of _this_.

Impulsively she reached out and closed his hand around it. "You should have it." 

"Pardon?" 

She'd never seen him genuinely startled before. Perhaps it was that he was an adept, and could see so much in the fae that others couldn't. Perhaps that was why nothing ever seemed to faze him. But now he was looking at her, almost rattled. 

"You don't mean that," he said, eventually.

"Yes, I do," she said firmly, and realised how true it was. No one else would appreciate it as he did. And ... "Without your encouragement I'd never have finished it. And I'd always have regretted that." She smiled at him and took a step closer. "You can't know how much it means to me."

"Narilka ..." Gerald's voice was almost hoarse. He lifted his free hand to her face, his fingers hovering just under her chin but not touching. She raised her face to his anyway. Gerald's dark eyes were warm, mesmerising.

She leaned closer.

Abruptly, Gerald took a step back, then another. "Excuse me," he said stiffly, turning away. Narilka felt the moment shatter around them.

Gerald, calmly, drew a kerchief from a drawer and wrapped the amulet carefully before putting it away. When he turned back to her, his eyes were cool and distant. 

"I'm afraid I have an engagement. Might we continue our conversation at another date?"

Numbly, she nodded, and watched him walk from the room, leaving her staring after him in confusion.

~*~

**Jaggonath, Year 1256 A.S.  
_five years after the Forest burned_**

Opportunities were easily made. Damien had thought hard about how to approach Narilka Tarrant, and then had decided to go for the straight-forward. Some inquiries among Jaggonath's adepts, and soon he knew of Gerald's appointment in the afternoon. With him away, he had a chance to talk to her.

"Mes Tarrant," he greeted when she opened the door, and attempted his most disarming smile. "I'm Damien Kilcannon Vryce. Please excuse the intrusion."

She was wearing trousers and a corseted leather vest over a loose blouse, emphasizing her lean figure. Her dark eyes examined him intently for a moment. "Yes," she said then, her voice calm. "My husband mentioned you to me."

He had? 

Something impish seemed to shine from her eyes then. "In fact, he suggested I might go and speak to you."

"I see," Damien said, though he didn't, not entirely. "Then it appears I've saved you an errand."

"So you have." She smiled at him, almost warmly, though he'd done nothing to deserve it. What had Gerald told her? "Won't you come in?"

He followed her into the now-familiar sitting room, and accepted her offer of tea, which - so she explained - she'd just made fresh. 

He sipped appreciatively, then set his cup down again. "Would it surprise you," he asked, "that he suggested I speak to you as well?"

She snorted. "With Gerald, very little surprises me." She looked him over again, and he was uncomfortably aware how very different he looked from her elegant husband, or her elegant self. Bulky where Gerald was lean, he was the physical opposite of Gerald. He was a warrior, a knight, never mind his occupation of the last five years. Then she leaned forward, intently. "You knew him, once," she said. "Do you find him ... very changed?"

The careful deliberation of her words gave her away, and he suddenly realised that she, just like him, was attempting to find a way to broach the subject of Gerald's past, sounding him out without admitting to anything.

It was then that he understood why the last day's revelations - all of them, and every moment of his conversation with Gerald - had felt so wrong. 

She did know. She'd not been duped. She knew exactly who Gerald was and had been. All of this; all of Gerald's waving his new life in front of Damien like some red flag before a bull - all of that spoke of only one thing: fear. Gerald hadn't thrown himself into darkness again; he worried that he'd fallen. Damien breathed lighter.

Everything Gerald had regained - perhaps there was nothing wrong with it. Perhaps Gerald could have it all, the best parts of his old life, and his new.

His mind flinched away from the thought, from measuring it against his own life.

"Completely, and not at all," he answered Narilka's question. "But I think he's the one worried, isn't he? Not you."

"Ah." She sat back, abruptly, pinching the bridge of her nose. "He set us up. Didn't he?"

Damien smiled at her in sudden fellow-feeling. "He told me to ask you if you knew about his past. And he told you to ask me how much he'd changed; is that true?"

"Yes." Clipped. "I'm going to ... Never mind. I didn't realise he was so worried. If he's using you as a measure of his change ..." 

"And manipulating us both, rather than asking."

"Naturally." Exasperation and fondness entwined in her voice. "Because it would be utterly beyond the man to simply say, 'Narilka, there's a friend of mine, and I'd like you to talk to him. I need an outside perspective.'"

Damien added, "Or, 'I'm worried about the state of my immortal soul. What are your thoughts on the matter?'"

They shared a look of complete understanding and humour.

Damien had walked beside Gerald with his eyes open, had walked the darkest of paths with him - had gone into Hell itself for him. And Narilka, as well, had chosen to walk beside him. To take him into her life - to marry him, to have him raise her daughter, even knowing what he was capable of. 

Perhaps Damien could allow himself to admit, in his heart of hearts, that he was almost jealous of her.

~*~

**Merentha, Year 1252 A.S.  
_one-and-a-half years after the Forest burned_**

When Gerald visited her, he usually stepped straight into the room to bow courteously over her hand. Narilka had become accustomed to the outmoded courtesy; had been charmed by it, in fact. This time, he remained in the doorway and looked at her from hooded eyes.

She rose, sensing the tension in him. Hoping she was not facing a scathing rebuff for her advances the last time they'd spoken. Hoping he wasn't withdrawing from her completely, as was entirely possible with a man so reserved, so private. "Aren't you coming in?"

"No," Gerald said curtly. Then, almost visibly uncoiling, he added. "I had better not. Not right now. But I would like to show you something, if you're amenable."

She breathed relief. That didn't sound like farewell. "Of course," she answered, and joined him quickly.

Gerald took her by the hand and led her down a side staircase, through corridors she'd never walked, and finally toward a stairwell that looked abandoned - there were no hangings on the wall, no decoration at all. He let go of her hand then, and they descended the winding staircase that must be taking them belowground, into disused rooms full of clutter and dust. There were empty shelves along the walls, cloth-covered pieces of furniture scattered around the room, the odd box of whoever-knew-what. The lamp he carried shed eerie shadows on the wall, and she couldn't entirely control her apprehension.

What a creepy place to take her. Could there be any reason for it that might be called good? 

He led her to a door to the side, through another disused room, this one bare even of clutter, into a chilly passage. Her apprehension turned to sudden understanding, and she stopped on the spot. He turned toward her, his dark features unreadable. "Come," he whispered.

She blinked, and thought of turning, of running as far from this, from him, as she could. Thought of the safety above, in her own rooms with her own servants and the light of day all around. She thought of what might be waiting for her below.

No. She'd promised to herself, once, that she wouldn't fight him. She'd changed her mind for Andrys only, and Andrys was dead. So ...

Narilka swallowed and took a step forward. He nodded, satisfied, and led her further, into what must be a natural cavern under the castle's foundation, the air inside chilly and dripping with water. Gerald led her through a natural archway in the rock into a smaller cavern. It was empty too, save for the rough stone slab in its centre. She knew what this must be. Gerald walked towards it, and looked down at it. She could only see his back, the curve of his neck, tension clear in his posture.

After a while he turned to her, challenge in his eyes. Challenge ... and something else, something she couldn't identify.

" _You_ ," she breathed.

He didn't deny it. "Me," he said. Just that word.

Again Narilka thought of running. She could try - she was still standing in the entrance; her escape route was open. And it was no longer possible to Work the fae; he could not bind her.

She didn't turn; she didn't shuffle backwards. She didn't let him see her fear. 

It was too dim to see clearly, but it seemed to her that the skin around his eyes crinkled slightly. "Perhaps you see why I retreated the other day."

She was beginning to. "I didn't think this place would still be here," she said quietly. Playing for time while thoughts rushed through her, nightmares and better hopes battling for dominance.

"Yes," he replied, equally as quiet. "This is where the Prophet murdered his wife and their children. All of them, save for one son. The line that leads directly to Andrys Tarrant, and through him, to your unborn child."

"A heritage I would gladly spare her from."

Something of a glare flared in his eyes. "That's not a choice you have. Even were she never to know any of what she came from, it would still be in her. Biologically, and through the fae. Not to mention the expectations of others - there are still those who do know." His voice had been sharp at first; now it sounded as if he'd deliberately mellowed his tone. Yet there was a gleam in his eyes that worried her. 

_His line_ , she thought, and resisted the urge to put her hand protectively over her stomach. _He's thinking about the continuation of his line, through the child I'm carrying._

She'd never planned to keep the past from her child; she'd always known it would be futile. "I understood that when I married Andrys."

"So you did."

They looked at each other for a long moment. The dread that was roiling in Narilka's stomach was curiously tinged with excitement. There, her own guilt - the gratitude she'd felt toward the Hunter for the gift of the night that he'd given her, the guilt she'd felt at coming to his domain among the Church's crusaders, campaigning for his demise ... She'd thought it behind her, but now it was staring her in the face.

"You're quite right, by the way," Gerald said, a quirk to his lips. "This shouldn't be here any more. But they didn't dare destroy the place; they just blocked the entrance."

"And you unblocked it."

He regarded her coolly. "Of course."

She wanted to ask him why he'd brought her here, why he couldn't just have told her, but she knew. It wouldn't have been the same. She'd needed to see. 

Narilka nodded slowly, keeping her turmoil firmly inside a very calm surface as she asked the one question she needed answered. Needed it answered even more than she needed to be away from this place. "What happened here. Would you do it again?"

Incongruously, he smiled. "I did promise you safety, Mes Lessing."

She didn't correct him for using her maiden name. "Is that the only reason?"

He looked at her with such intensity in his eyes that she almost would have become frightened, if it were in her to be afraid of him. If the fae still allowed it, she would have thought he was Working a Knowing on her. Then he relaxed slightly. 

"Perhaps fortunately for everyone, it's no longer an option. If I could ..." He gave an elaborate shrug. "I would like to think I've learned better. But I am not a good man, Narilka."

She didn't say anything. She merely breathed, slowly, until she was sure she could move without trembling. Then she turned around and walked out, back through the cavern, the disused rooms, the staircase - all the way up into the castle until she was back in familiar rooms. There were no footfalls behind her.

~*~

The knock on the door was firm, steady. Its rhythm was intimately familiar by now; she had heard it many times in the past months. She tried to gather her thoughts. No use delaying this.

"Come," she called after a moment.

As he'd done the last time, Gerald stopped in the doorway. "May I come in?"

She nodded, her eyes riveted to him, seeing him as if for the first time. In a way, she was - she'd never before known who it was she was seeing. 

He looked nothing like the Hunter she'd known. Younger, darker-skinned, black-haired where he'd been blond. Human. Nothing at all like the Hunter, or like her husband. And yet, now she could see it in every part of him. In his eyes, coolly regarding her. In his posture, casually arrogant and confident. In the small gesture he used to flick an invisible fleck of dust from his sleeve. There was no doubt.

A dead man, standing in front of her. 

She'd seen Andrys with the Hunter's severed head. She'd known then that it was over, and relief and guilt and disappointment had warred in her until she'd clamped down on the feelings.

He was dead. He could not be standing in front of her right now, a slightly hesitant expression on his face. He could not be standing here alive, while Andrys was dead in his grave. He could not be here, in her life. It could not be him, and yet it was.

"You," she whispered again once the door had closed behind him. "Hunter."

"Not any more," he corrected her. "And even then, you had nothing to fear from me."

"You owe me answers," she said, sounding calmer than she felt. "If nothing else, you owe me that much. Why are you here?" A terrible thought came to her. Andrys, with the Hunter's head ... Might there have been revenge, here? "Did you have a hand in what happened to Andrys?" 

Gerald started, and glared at her. "You imagine I wanted him to die? He was the end of my line." He snorted. "Even at my worst, I never wanted him dead. You know what killed him."

Narilka wanted to hit him, scream at him that Andrys's death was a tragedy, that it wasn't about _him_ or his damned line. That Gerald was the one who'd inspired that fear in Andrys, long ago - if there was fault, ultimately it lay with none other but him. She wanted to throw all of that in his face. But the words died in her throat as she saw the genuine regret on his face. 

Not because that made it right, somehow, that he should see his family only as an experiment of nine hundred years, and not as _people_. No, never that. But because the expression sat so uneasily on his face, as if he was experiencing some emotion he was unaccustomed to.

He wasn't what he'd been. She held on to the thought firmly. "Explain it to me," she demanded. "I have a right."

He inclined his head towards her in acknowledgment. "I have made three significant sacrifices in my life," he began quietly. "The first took place here, under the castle, where I took you."

"Your family."

Gerald shook his head. "My humanity. They were merely the instrument of that sacrifice." He smiled, humourlessly. "Perhaps that makes it worse; I don't know. The second time, against Calesta, I gave my life to bind him. It wasn't atonement; understand that - it was simple necessity. The world would have been doomed; there was no other way. And so I gave my life. More than my life - any hope of escaping the Unnamed. I still marvel that I was spared." A deep breath. "And the third, with Andrys ... As you can see, I didn't die that night, though everyone saw what you did. Of my sacrifices, perhaps the least far-reaching, or the most. I gave my past. My identity. Everything I'd been, everything I'd held on to for nine hundred years I sacrificed, never to be able to claim it again. So you see, that man is truly dead."

Narilka pondered that. "You're still yourself, though."

"Not the Hunter. Not the Prophet. Not the Neocount of Merentha. Not any of the things that I was. Those titles are no longer mine. All the outward things I gave up. Any life I have now must rest on something new. On being something new."

She looked at him, and could not find any trace of deception in his face. His intensity might frighten her; she would not back down from it. She had not backed down from the Hunter, after all. "I see."

He smiled wryly, and rose from his seat. "I'm very sorry, Narilka. I can't be who you wanted me to be." He bowed, stiffly, and made to turn. 

She grasped his arm, held him in place. Solid, human warmth under her hand, not the inhuman chill of the Hunter. She didn't let go.

He raised his eyebrows at her, questioningly.

"You're just going to leave?" She examined his face, trying to read his dark eyes. "You tell me all this, only to turn away?"

He looked away. "You deserve better than deception." A tired snort. "But would you dare let me close to your child, knowing who I am?"

Narilka swallowed. He could have left her ignorant; he'd chosen to show her the truth instead. He deserved truth in return. "I would have dared let the Hunter himself close to her," she said steadily, "had he promised her what he promised me."

He turned to her again, surprise transparent on his features. "You're serious."

"Completely serious." She was. Suddenly everything seemed completely clear in her mind.

His smile grew warmer. "You never did fear me."

Of course she had. He might have Worked her, that first time, so she wouldn't panic, so she wouldn't question. But the second time ... he'd hunted her, as only the Hunter could, in the Forest he'd designed as his hunting ground. He'd played with his prey. He'd have killed her, enjoyed every moment of it. She'd known that then, and she knew it now. Of course she'd been terrified. She'd been plagued by nightmares for years.

But when he'd hunted her, she hadn't known it was _him_.

And for the gift he'd given her, she'd been prepared to pay the price. Terrified, yes. But never so much as to forget there was more to him than that. 

Gerald lifted her hand from his arm, gently, and let her go. "I mustn't return to any part of my old life," he repeated quietly, "and yet here I am, with you. In the castle I lived in, and a child on the way of my own line. I am treading very closely to something I'm forbidden." They were eye to eye now, though no longer touching. "But I don't believe I'm crossing that line."

Narilka didn't either. The man he'd been would not have acted as he did today. He was not returning to what he'd been; he was ... oh.

"You're here, in Merentha. In the very place it all started," she said slowly. "Perhaps here is where you can start again." And she held out her hand to him.

Gerald hesitated only a fraction of a moment before his fingers, warmly, closed around hers. He lifted her hand, slowly, deliberately, and brushed his lips against it. Not for a moment did his eyes leave her. "Perhaps," he repeated. And then, "If you will permit it, I should very much like that." A wry smile. "Perhaps I might have a place in the Dowager Neocountess's life after all."

"Perhaps you might." She stepped closer. "Perhaps as the Dowager Neocountess's husband."

His eyes widened for a second; then mischief seemed to blossom from within. "Perhaps I might take her name."

"Perhaps you might." Mirth and joy were bubbling up within her, not at all weighed down by the revelations of the night, but somehow all the more striking for them. She reached out then and dared touch his cheek, then wound a hand into his dark hair and pulled him to her. His warmth wrapped around her as their lips touched.

~*~

**Jaggonath, Year 1256 A.S.  
_five years after the Forest burned_**

"Gerald," Damien said the moment the alterwood door opened before him, exasperation in his voice, "you could have just _asked_."

A dark eyebrow rose. "I beg your pardon?" But he stepped back, letting Damien into his house.

"Contrary to what you seem to believe, I'm not in fact an idiot," Damien reminded him. "Neither is your wife."

Gerald's expression remained distant as they settled into chairs. "Perhaps you'd like to explain yourself. I can't just Work a Knowing any more, much as it would be preferable." He leaned back, presenting a perfect image of incomprehension.

Damien snorted. "It took me a while to get over the shock, but then that was the point, wasn't it? You knew I was here. You knew I'd see you, and find out what you'd been doing all these years. And you deliberately put it all to me in the worst possible light. You deliberately led me to the worst conclusions."

Gerald's expression remained unchanged, unrelenting. "Whyever would I do that, Vryce?" 

"Because you're worried," Damien said gently. "Because you know what fine a line you're treading, and you're worried you're going too far. You wanted my perspective. Don't deny it. Speaking to Narilka made everything clear. And that, too, was deliberate, wasn't it? That's why you sent me to her."

It was typical, of course. Gerald had never done anything the easy way, not in all of his centuries. He hadn't been willing, or perhaps even able, to simply ask a friend's help. He _had_ reached out to Damien, in the end, but in such a typically Gerald way - by manipulating him. 

"Gerald," Damien murmured quietly. "You're still afraid to _hope_."

"Perhaps," Gerald admitted after a moment. "Or perhaps I've little cause for hope. You know what I've been, what I've done. Being free of my compact with the Unnamed doesn't free me from damnation."

Damien snorted. "Certain damnation still easier to accept than uncertain mercy, is it?"

Gerald looked away. He'd never dealt well with the unknowable. Simple trust, without calculations, probabilities and backup plans, was alien to him. But there were some matters in which there was no choice.

"The nature of the One God is mercy," Damien quoted the Prophet's words back at Gerald. "Don't you believe that any more? You're a man of the Church - have some faith."

Gerald's lip curled. "Faith, Vryce?" he struck back. "From you, who has lingered here in Jaggonath for five years, afraid to move on?"

Damien flinched. "Yes, well," he snapped, "perhaps I needed your damnable cynicism to remind me."

They stared at each other, belligerently, and it was only then that Damien realised it was true.

Gerald, it seemed, was coming to a similar conclusion. "As I needed your optimism, it seems." 

What an admission, from this most reserved of men. It was true, in a manner - everything they'd done together, they'd only managed because they'd balanced each other. Once, he would have called it corruption - they'd corrupted each other, both failing their prior purity. But Damien had long stopped being able to regret the change in himself. It had made them something more than either of them could have been on his own. 

And yet: "I'm not your conscience, you know," Damien couldn't help but add. He still - or perhaps again - had hopes for Gerald's journey of redemption, and that couldn't be merely reliance on a companion's balance. That had to come from within Gerald himself.

"No," Gerald agreed, sounding almost regretful. "I'm not blind to that, Vryce. I don't have that faith of yours; I'll never have it. And neither you nor Narilka can offer me absolution; only I can decide whether I'm crossing that line." He closed his eyes, as if searching within himself. "I don't believe I am; not now. And you ..." He looked up, eyeing Damien speculatively. "You've been of great assistance here, you realise. It would be churlish of me not to repay it." Brief hesitation; then he lifted a hand in a gesture of invitation. "How would you like to visit Merentha?"


End file.
